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Valentine Chirol - Indian Unrest

V >> Valentine Chirol >> Indian Unrest




The weak point of the recent political reforms is that they were
intended to benefit, not wholly, but mainly, that particular class. In
so far as they may help to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the
moderate Indian politician they deserve praise; and in that respect, as
far as one can judge at this very early stage, they are not without
promise. In effect they have also helped to give other important
interests opportunities of organization and expression. Apart from the
great Mahomedan community, whose political aspirations are largely
different from, and opposed to, those of Hinduism, there are
agricultural interests, always of supreme importance in such a country
as India, and industrial and commercial interests of growing importance
which cannot be adequately represented by the average Indian politician
who is chiefly recruited from the towns and from, professions that have
little or no knowledge of or sympathy with them. The politician, for
instance, is too often a lawyer, and he has thriven upon a system of
jurisprudence and legal procedure which we have imported into India with
the best intentions, but with results that have sometimes been simply
disastrous to a thriftless and litigious people. Hence the suspicion and
dislike entertained by large numbers of quiet, respectable Indians for
any political institutions that tend to increase the influence of the
Indian _vakeel_ and of the class he represents. Our object, therefore,
both in the education and in the political training of Indians, should
be to divert the activities of the new Western-educated classes into
economic channels which would broaden their own horizon, and to give
greater encouragement and recognition to the interests of the very large
and influential classes that hold entirely aloof from politics but look
to us for guidance and help in the development of the material resources
of the country. We have their support at present, but to retain it we
must carefully avoid creating the impression that political agitation is
the only lever that acts effectively upon Government, and that in the
relations of India and Great Britain--and especially in their fiscal and
financial relations--the exigencies of party politics at home and the
material interests of the predominant partner must invariably prevail.

Whilst, subject to the maintenance of effective executive control, we
have extended and must continue steadily to extend the area of civil
employment for Indians in the service of the State, there would
certainly seem to be room also for affording them increased
opportunities of military employment. It is a strange anomaly that, at a
time when we have no hesitation in introducing Indians into our
Executive Councils, those who serve the King-Emperor in the Indian Army
can only rise to quite subordinate rank. A good deal has no doubt been
done to improve the quality of the native officer from the point of view
of military education, but, under present conditions, the Indian Army
does not offer a career that can attract Indians of good position,
though it is just among the landed aristocracy and gentry of India that
military traditions are combined with the strongest traditions of
loyalty. By the creation of an Imperial Cadet Corps Lord Curzon took a
step in the right direction which was warmly welcomed at the time, but
has received very little encouragement since his departure from India.
Something more than that seems to be wanted to-day. Some of the best
military opinion in India favours, I believe, an experimental scheme for
the gradual promotion of native officers, carefully selected and
trained, to field rank in a certain number of regiments which would
ultimately be entirely officered by Indians--just in the same way as a
certain number of regiments in the Egyptian Army have always been wholly
officered by Egyptians. Indeed, we need not go outside India to find
even now, in the Native States, Indian forces exclusively officered by
Indians. The effect upon the whole Native Army of some such measure as I
have indicated would be excellent; and though we could never hope to
retain India merely by the sword against the combined hostility of its
various peoples, the Native Army must always be a factor of first-rate
importance, both for the prevention and the repression of any spasmodic
outbreak of revolt. It is no secret that reiterated attempts have been
made to shake its loyalty, and in some isolated cases not altogether
without success. But the most competent authorities, whilst admitting
the need for vigilance, deprecate any serious alarm, and it is all to
the good that British officers no longer indulge in the blind optimism
which prevailed among those of the old Sepoy regiments before the
Mutiny.

One point which Englishmen are apt to forget, and which has been rather
lost sight of In the recent political reforms, is that more than a fifth
of the population of our Indian Empire--about one third of its total
area--is under the direct administration not of the Government of India,
but of the Ruling Chiefs. They represent great traditions and great
interests, which duty and statesmanship equally forbid us to ignore. The
creation of an Imperial Council, in which they would have sat with
representatives of the Indian aristocracy of British India, was an
important feature of the original scheme of reforms proposed by the
Government of India. It was abandoned for reasons of which I am not
concerned to dispute the validity. But the idea underlying it was
unquestionably sound, and Lord Minto acted upon it when he drew the
Ruling Chiefs into consultation as to the prevention of sedition. Some
means will have to be found to embody it in a more regular and permanent
shape. If we were to attempt to introduce what are called democratic
methods into the government of British India without seeking the
adhesion and support of the feudatory Princes, we should run a grave
risk of estranging one of the most loyal and conservative forces in the
Indian Empire. The administrative autonomy of the native States is
sometimes put forward as an argument in favour of the self-government
which Indian politicians demand. It Is an argument based on complete
ignorance. With one or two exceptions, far more apparent than real, the
Native States are governed by patriarchal methods, which may be
thoroughly suited to the traditions and needs of their subjects, but are
much further removed than the methods of government in British India
from the professed aspirations of the Indian National Congress. Just as
the Ruling Chiefs rightly complained of the effect upon their own people
of the seditious literature imported into their States from British
India before we were at last induced to check the output of the
"extremist" Press, so they would be justified in resenting any grave
political changes in British India which would react dangerously upon
their own position and their relations with their own subjects. When we
talk of governing India in accordance with Indian ideas, we cannot
exclude the ideas of the very representative and influential class of
Indians to which none are better qualified to give expression than the
Ruling Chiefs. One further suggestion. The policy of annexation has long
since been abandoned, and the question to-day is whether we might not go
further and give ruling powers to a few great chiefs of approved loyalty
and high character, who possess in British India estates more populous
and important than those of many whom we have always recognized as
Ruling Chiefs. The objections to so novel a departure are, I know,
serious, and may be overwhelming--foremost among them being the
reluctance hitherto shown by the people themselves whenever, for
purposes of administrative convenience, any slight readjustment of
boundaries has been proposed that involved the transfer to a native
State of even a few villages until then under British Administration.

The political reforms with which Lord Minto's Viceroyalty will remain
identified are only just on their trial. All that can safely be said at
present is that they are full of promise, and it would be rash to
predict whether and when it may be safe to proceed further in the
direction to which, they point. It is difficult even to say yet awhile
what share they have had, independently of the "repressive" measures
that accompanied them, in stemming at least temporarily the tide of
active sedition. Time is required to mature their fruits whether for
good or for evil. One may hope that, though they address themselves
only to the political elements of the present unrest, they will tend to
facilitate the treatment of the economic and social factors of the
Indian problem. It is these that now chiefly and most urgently claim the
attention of the British rulers of India. To rescue education from its
present unhealthy surroundings and to raise it on to a higher plane
whilst making it more practical, to promote the industrial and
commercial expansion of India so as to open up new fields for the
intellectual activity of educated Indians, to strengthen the old ties
and to create new ones that shall bind the ancient conservative as well
as the modern progressive forces of Indian society to the British _Raj_
by an enlightened sense of self-interest are slower and more arduous
tasks and demand more patient and sustained statesmanship than any
adventures in constitutional changes. But it is only by the successful
achievement of such tasks that we can expect to retain the loyal
acquiescence of the Princes and peoples of India in the maintenance of
British rule.

The sentiment of reverence for the Crown is widespread and deep-rooted
among all races and creeds in India[25]. It is perhaps the one tradition
common to all. It went out spontaneously to Queen Victoria, whose length
of years and widowed isolation appealed with a peculiar sense of lofty
and pathetic dignity to the imagination of her Indian peoples. It has
been materially reinforced by the pride of personal acquaintance, since
India has been twice honoured with the presence of the immediate
successor to the Throne. The late King's visit to India has not yet
faded from the memory of the older generation, and that of the present
King-Emperor and his gracious Consort is, of course, still fresh in the
recollection of all. How powerful is the hold which the majesty of the
Crown exercises upon Princes and peoples in India was very strikingly
shown by the calming effect, however temporary, which the presence of
the Prince and Princess of Wales had in Bengal four years ago, at the
very moment when political agitation in that province was developing
into almost open sedition; and it was shown once more this year by the
hush of subdued grief that passed over the whole of India at the sudden
news of King Edward's death. Only such rabid papers as Tilak's old
organ, the _Kesari_, ventured an attempt to counteract the deep
impression produced by that lamentable event, and it could only attempt
to do so, very ineffectively, by a spiteful and ignorant depreciation of
the position and personality of the Sovereign, and of the part played by
him in a Western democracy.

In spite of the traditional prestige attaching to the Crown, we cannot,
however, reasonably look for loyalty from India in the sense in which we
look for it from our own people or from our kinsmen beyond the seas.
There can never be between Englishmen and Indians the same community of
historical traditions, of racial affinity, of social institutions, of
customs and beliefs that exists between people of our own stock
throughout the British Empire. The absence of these sentimental bonds,
which cannot be artificially forged, makes it impossible that we should
ever concede to India the rights of self-government which we have
willingly conceded to the great British communities of our own race. And
there is another and scarcely less cogent reason. The justification of
our presence in India is that it gives peace and security to all the
various races and creeds which make up one-fifth of the population of
this globe. To introduce self-government into India would necessarily be
to hand it over to the ascendency of the strongest. That we are debarred
from doing by the very terms on which we hold India, and that is what
Lord Morley must have had in his mind, when, in supporting the Indian
Councils Act last year, he specifically excluded all possibility of such
assemblies ever leading to the establishment of Parliamentary government
in India. The sooner that is made perfectly clear the better. But just
because executive self-government is inconceivable in India so long as
British rule is maintained, we must recognize the special
responsibility that consequently devolves upon us not only to do many
things for India which we do not attempt to do for our self-governing
Dominions, but, above all, not to force upon India things which we
should not dream of forcing upon them, and especially in matters in
which British material interests may appear to be closely concerned. We
must continue to govern India as the greatest of the dependencies of the
British Crown, but we must do our utmost to satisfy Indians of all
classes and castes and beliefs that we govern them as none of their race
could govern them, with an equal and absolutely impartial regard for all
law-abiding communities, with an intelligent appreciation of their
peculiar interests, and with genuine consideration for all their ideas,
so long as those ideas are compatible with the maintenance and security
of British rule.

* * * * *

The retirement of Lord Morley has been announced just as these last
pages are going to press. The announcement has been received with
genuine and widespread regret at home, where criticism of certain
details and aspects of his administration has never detracted from a
genuine recognition of the lofty sense of duty and broad and courageous
statesmanship which he has displayed throughout a very critical period
in the history of our Indian Empire. It will assuredly be received with
the same feeling in India by all those who have at heart the destinies
of the British _Raj_ and the interests of the countless peoples
committed to our charge. Lord Morley's tenure of office will remain for
all times memorable in Anglo-Indian annals. He has set for the Indian
ship of State a new course upon which she will be kept with increasing
confidence in the future if we keep steadily before us the wise words
which, with his own singular felicity of speech, he addressed two years
ago to the Indian Civil Service:--"We have a clouded moment before us
now. We shall get through it--but only with self-command and without any
quackery or cant, whether it be the quackery of blind violence disguised
as love of order, or the cant of unsound and misapplied sentiment,
divorced from knowledge and untouched by any cool consideration of
facts."




NOTES

NOTE 1.

THE NATIVE PRESS.

Not a single Indian member of the Imperial Council made any serious
attempt to controvert the following description given by Sir Herbert
Risley of the demoralization of the native Press when he introduced the
new Press Bill on February 4, 1910:--We see the most influential and
widely-read portion of the Indian Press incessantly occupied in
rendering the Government by law established odious in the sight of the
Indian people. The Government is foreign, and therefore selfish and
tyrannical. It drains the country of its wealth; it has impoverished the
people, and brought about famine on a scale and with a frequency unknown
before; its public works, roads, railways, and canals have generated
malaria; it has introduced plague, by poisoning wells, in order to
reduce the population that has to be held in subjection it has deprived
the Indian peasant of his land; the Indian artisan of his industry, and
the Indian merchant of his trade; it has destroyed religion by its
godless system of education; it seeks to destroy caste by polluting
maliciously and of set purpose, the salt and sugar that men eat and the
cloth that they wear; it allows Indians to be ill-treated in British
Colonies; it levies heavy taxes and spends them on the army; it pays
high salaries to Englishmen, and employs Indians only in the worst paid
posts--in short, it has enslaved a whole people, who are now struggling
to be free.

My enumeration may not be exhaustive but these are some of the
statements that are now being implanted as axioms in the minds of rising
generation of educated youths, the source from which we recruit the
great body of civil officials who administer India. If nothing more were
said, if the Press were content to--

"let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly" things would be bad
enough. But very much more is said. Every day the Press proclaims,
openly or by suggestion or allusion, that the only cure for the ills of
India is independence from foreign rule, independence to be won by
heroic deeds, self-sacrifice, martyrdom on the part of the young, in any
case by some form of violence. Hindu mythology, ancient and modern
history, and more especially the European literature of revolution, are
ransacked to furnish examples that justify revolt and proclaim its
inevitable success. The methods of guerilla warfare as practised in
Circassia, Spain, and South Africa; Mazzini's gospel of political
assassination; Kossuth's most violent doctrines; the doings of Russian
Nihilists; the murder of the Marquis Ito; the dialogue between Arjuna
and Krishna in the "Gita," a book that is to Hindus what the "Imitation
of Christ" is to emotional Christians--all these are pressed into the
service of inflaming impressionable minds. The last instance is perhaps
the worst. I can imagine no more wicked desecration than that the
sacrilegious hand of the Anarchist should be laid upon the Indian song
of songs, and that a masterpiece of transcendental philosophy and
religious ecstasy should be perverted to the base uses of preaching
political murder.

The consequences of this ever-flowing stream of slander and incitement
to outrage are now upon us. What was dimly foreseen a few years ago has
actually come to pass. We are at the present moment confronted with a
murderous conspiracy, whose aim it is to subvert the Government of the
country and to make British rule impossible by establishing general
terrorism. Their organization is effective and far-reaching; their
numbers are believed to be considerable; the leaders work in secret and
are blindly obeyed by their youthful followers. The method they favour
at present is political assassination; the method of Mazzini in his
worst moods. Already they have a long score of murders or attempted
murders to their account. There were two attempts to blow up Sir Andrew
Fraser's train and one, of the type with which we are now unhappily
familiar, to shoot him on a public occasion. Two attempts were made to
murder Mr. Kingsford, one of which caused the death of two English
ladies. Inspector Nanda Lal Banerji, Babu Ashutosh Biswas, the Public
Prosecutor at Alipore, Sir William Curzon-Wyllie, Mr. Jackson, and only
the other day Deputy Supdt. Shams-ul-Alum have been shot in the most
deliberate and cold-blooded fashion. Of three informers two have been
killed, and on the third vengeance has been taken by the murder of his
brother in the sight of his mother and sisters. Mr. Allen, the
magistrate of Dacca, was shot through the lungs and narrowly escaped
with his life. Two picric acid bombs were thrown at His Excellency the
Viceroy at Ahmedabad, and only failed to explode by reason of their
faulty construction. Not long afterwards an attempt was made with a bomb
on the Deputy Commissioner of Umballa.

These things are the natural and necessary consequence of the teachings
of certain journals. They have prepared the soil in which anarchy
flourishes; they have sown the seed and they are answerable for the
crop. This is no mere general statement; the chain of causation is
clear. Not only does the campaign of violence date from the change in
the tone of the Press, but specific outbursts of incitement have been
followed by specific outrages.

And now, Sir, I appeal to the Council in the name of all objects that
patriotic Indians have at heart to give their cordial approval to this
Bill. It is called for in the interests of the State, of our officers
both Indian and European, and most of all of the rising generation of
young men. In this matter, indeed, the interests of the State and the
interests of the people are one and the same. If it is good for India
that British rule should continue, it is equally essential that the
relations between Government and the educated community should be
cordial and intimate, and that cannot long be the case if the organs of
that community lay themselves out to embitter those relations in every
sort of way and to create a permanent atmosphere of latent and often
open hostility. In the long run people will believe what they are told,
if they are told it often enough, and if they hear nothing on the other
side. There is plenty of work in India waiting to be done, but it will
be done, if the energies of the educated classes are wasted in incessant
abuse and suspicion of Government. As regards the officers of Government
the case is clear. At all costs they must be protected from intimidation
and worse. And it is our Indian officials who stand in most need of
protection, for they are most exposed to the danger. The detailed work
of investigation and detection necessarily falls upon them, and they are
specially vulnerable through their families. They have done most
admirable work during the troubles of the last few years, and have
displayed under most trying conditions courage and loyalty that are
beyond all praise. We are bound in honour to protect them from threats
of murder and outrage which sooner or later bring about their own
fulfilment.

To my mind, Sir, the worst feature of the present situation is the
terrible influence that the Press exercises upon the student class. I
was talking about this about a month ago with a distinguished Indian who
is in close touch with schools and colleges in Bengal. He took a most
gloomy view of the present state of things and the prospects of the
immediate future. According to him the younger generation had got
entirely out of hand, and many of them had become criminal fanatics
uncontrollable by their parents or their masters.

I believe. Sir, that this Bill will prove to be a wholesome and
beneficial measure of national education, that it will in course of time
prevent a number of young men from drifting into evil courses and
ruining their prospects in life, and that in passing it this Council
will earn the lasting gratitude of many thousands of Indian parents.

NOTE 2

THE SUPERIORITY OF HINDU CIVILIZATION. In an "Open Letter to his
Countrymen," published at the Sri Narayan Press in Calcutta, Mr.
Arabindo Ghose has in so many words proclaimed the superiority of Hindu
to Western civilization. "We reject," he writes, "the claim of aliens to
force upon us a civilization inferior to our own or to keep us out of
our inheritance on the untenable ground of a superior fitness."

NOTE 3

SEDITIOUS PLAYS.

One of the most popular of these plays is _The Killing of Kichaka
(Kichaka-vadd)_. The author, Mr. Khadilkar, was assistant editor of the
_Kesari_ until Tilak was arrested and convicted in 1908, and he then
took over the chief editorship. The play has been acted all over the
Deccan as well as in Bombay City to houses packed with large native
audiences. The following account of it appeared in _The Times_ of
January 18 last: Founded upon the Mahabharata, _The Killing of Kichaka_
seems at first sight a purely classical drama. It will be remembered by
Oriental students that Duryodhan, jealous of his cousin Yudhistira,
Emperor of Hastinapura and the eldest of the five Pandava brothers,
induced him to play at dice with a Court gambler called Sakuni. To him
the infatuated monarch lost his wealth, his kingdom, his own and his
brother's freedom, and lastly that of Draupadi, the wife of all the
brothers. Eventually, at the intercession of Duryodhan's father, it was
agreed that the Emperor, in full settlement of his losses, should with
his brothers and Draupadi abandon Hastinapura to Duryodhan for 13 years.
Of these 12 were to be spent in the forest and one in disguise in some
distant city. Should, however, the disguise of any be penetrated, all
would be obliged to pass a further 12 years in the forest. When the 12
years had expired, the brothers fixed on Viratnagar, the capital of
Virata, King of the Malyas, in which to spend their year of concealment.
Yudhistira took the name of Kankbhat, a professional dicer, and Bhima
that of Ballava, a professional cook. Under their pseudonyms all five
brothers obtained posts in the King's service, while Draupadi, styling
herself a _sairandhri_ or tirewoman, entered the service of the Queen
Sudeshna. Before the year of concealment ended Kichaka, the brother of
Queen Sudeshna and commander-in-chief of the Malya forces, returned from
a visit to Duryodhan at Hastinapura. Duryodhan had given him as presents
Yudhistira's regalia and Draupadi's jewels, and Kichaka boasted that, as
Duryodhan's friend, he would one after the other kill the five Pandavas
in single combat and then wed their queen. While telling King Virata's
Court of his reception, his eye fell on Draupadi, and learning that she
was a _sairandhri_ and being struck with her beauty, he formally
requested the King Virata that she might be sent to his harem. The King
consenting, Yudhistira was faced with the dilemma of suffering his
queen's dishonour or of revealing his identity. Eventually his brother
Bhima solved the difficulty by secretly killing Kichaka.

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